


would've waited

by kirkwaltz (orphan_account)



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/kirkwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It's more romantic if I come back almost dead,” he'd said once, and she'd smiled painfully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	would've waited

It's been almost seven years since she married him (though it was really only one or two for her, since she was frozen in carbonite for five years), and yet every single time she thinks back on it, she regrets it. At the time, she was immature, childish, letting her passions guide her. That's what Sith, do, after all. And then... Pierce, and Theron, and she flirted with the idea of Lana – even though she was already married to the man she thought she loved.

She'd loved him, yes, but then he'd betrayed them. He'd betrayed her. How could she love someone who betrayed her? But then he'd apologized, and proposed to her, and in a horrific mixture of hate and love she'd chosen to let passion and rage send her spiraling down.

When had she decided she didn't want him anymore? When had she decided that any vows she'd taken didn't matter?

But now, when everything could easily change, when she was waiting for something or anything that proved that everyone she cared about was still out there (Vette, Jaesa, and just slightly Malavai even though she didn't actually care.)

She'd always been different – a Chiss Sith, the Emperor's Wrath, practically a chosen one, and now the Emperor himself resided within her. When she'd met Koth, she'd wondered to herself for the first time in a really long time what he looked like when he smiled, if he laughed at horrible jokes.

And the longer she got to know him, she realized he did. And so, sitting in a bar at half past three in the morning, her breath probably smelling like cheap alcohol, she leaned forward and said, “Two Sith, a pilot from the Eternal Empire, the Emperor's lover, and an ex-SIS agent walk into a bar,” her voice sounding like she was on the verge of laughing.

Koth grinned, because they really all were in a bar, joking around about some of the stupidest stuff and trying not to care if they actually did anything right or did nothing right at all, because really, did it even matter? They didn't need to worry about tomorrow – that was someday, not today. “They walk into a bar and the SIS agent trips.” he added, and then shook his head and said, “just don't tell Theron I remembered that.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” she said, taking another drink, and remembering a bar on Dromund Kaas she went to with Vette and Jaesa once upon a time, somewhat like this, except Jaesa didn't touch the drinks and Vette ended up dancing on the bar and they got kicked out. Not like it mattered anyway, they'd had the fun they'd wanted to.

Koth leaned forward and kissed her, because that'd happened a lot recently anyway, and pulled back only to say, “You've had enough drinks.” She'd rolled her eyes (which _really_ sucked anyway because he couldn't see her rolling her eyes anyway) and set down her drink and they'd left and she'd kissed him again.

He wasn't like Malavai, who was controlling and careful and incredibly calm, a traitor, even though she should've seen it coming (after all, Siths getting betrayed was practically another weekday.) Malavai didn't follow his passions at all – in fact, he held them back, like that would fix everything for him. Koth could be brash, arrogant, filled with rage – he was intelligent, he loved, he cared about things, he had a passion for flying and for her and for their cause. The two only had one similarity: their love for their people... but even there it was different. Koth wanted everything back to how it'd been, and Malavai wanted a perfect empire.

And she'd found that Koth's smile was better, and his laugh was louder, and when he kissed her, she actually felt something. She loved Koth's voice, especially when he was happy, and once upon a time she hadn't known him (and it should've never been like that.)

So, she knows what she'll do when Malavai comes back, if he ever does. She'll smile politely and not care if he gets upset for her cheating on him with Theron and Pierce. She's already chosen Koth.

“It's more romantic if I come back almost dead,” he'd said once, and she'd smiled painfully. But it was a good kind of painful. She loved him, and he loved her, and he didn't just love her for what she was and what she stood her. She wasn't Darth Baras' apprentice to him, she wasn't the Emperor's Wrath – or the Empire's Wrath, for that matter. She wasn't a Sith to him, she was more.

And when she tells him, “I'm married,” he's angry but he listens when she tells him the truth, how she married Malavai in a moment of childish love, even though she still wasn't sure if she truly loved him.

“If I'd known I'd meet you,” she says, “I would've waited. Because I love you, and I choose you, and I should've listened to my head and not my heart.”

And Koth nods, and says, “Okay.”

And he takes her hands into his and brushes his lips against her knuckles. “I've been in enough relationships to know that there isn't just one person out there for you, no matter what anyone says. Your... what's the word... soulmate? It could be anyone.”

She smiles and pulls her hands away so that she can actually kiss him, and wonders if she could've had this a long time ago.


End file.
